It is now the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide. In 1915 and
for a few years afterwards, Ottoman Turks mercilessly cut down
Armenians with the intent to annihilate the race; and from 1915 until
today, a full century later, the Ottoman Turks and after them the
leaders of modern Turkey have tried to deny this genocide.

The Ottoman Turks murdered some one-and-a-half million human beings,
but not then, and not now, have they owned up to it. To the extent
that contemporary Turks deny the genocide, they are in a sense
complicit in it, though of course they did not walk and starve the
Armenians to death -- the favored method of inhumanity practiced in
1915 and for a few years afterwards.

We do not claim to understand the mentality of the genocide deniers,
especially when these deniers were not the actual perpetrators. We
merely observe that, for whatever psychological reason, genocide
denial seems to be as deeply rooted as the hate itself.

On the same scale is the psychological disfigurement within the denial
of instances of national brutality that do not rise to the level of
genocide. Just as genocide denial spread beyond the Turks to the
heinous fans of Hitler and their denial of the Holocaust, so, too, the
denial of national brutality spreads.

Case in point, Japan.

The movie, "Unbroken," raises the curtain on the massive Japanese
atrocities before and during WW II. Nine out of ten American POWs who
died during WW II died at the hands of the Japanese, writes James
Gibney, citing historian Daqing Yang. That sounds unfortunate. It was
far worse.

* The Japanese, like the Nazis, engaged in medical "experiments" on
the people they captured.

* The Japanese vivisected their prisoners.

* The Japanese beheaded their prisoners and ate some of the body parts.

The Japanese now condemn "Unbroken." Don't expect it to be shown in
Japan. The truth hurts. Members of the current Japanese government
would have us believe that the Japanese never forced women during WW
II into prostitution; and did not commit the Nanjing Massacre of
Chinese civilians in 1937; and, just like the Turkish government all
the way up to today, threaten journalists who write the truth. Turkey,
meet Japan.

What strikes us as particularly impenetrable is the mentality that
denies genocide even by people who were born afterward, who never
murdered anyone. In the case of Turkey, even the entire country was
born afterwards -- modern Turkey emerged after the Armenian genocide,
committed by the Ottoman Turks. Likewise, few if any perpetrators of
the Japanese atrocities of WW II are alive. Yet, their descendants
feel the need to deny the facts of their past, and even to threaten
those who would do nothing but recite these facts.

Holocaust denial is to be expected not just by Germans or members of
the many nationalities that willingly collaborated with Germany's
Nazis -- the Lithuanians, Poles, Hungarians, Romanians, Ukrainians,
French and Dutch of WW II, for example. Holocaust denial is expected
from anti-Semites who had nothing directly to do with the Holocaust.
Their hatred, if also impenetrable, is all too familiar.

As to the actual perpetrators of genocide and their descendants -- to
us their denial is opaque, beyond understanding. Which is no reason
not to shine the spotlight on them. If they can deny genocide once,
they can commit it again.